Forging Zero (75 page)

“How are we doing?” Joe asked.

“Main force selected a tunnel,”
Libby said. 
“Waiting on decoy.”

“Go, Scott,” Joe said.  “Main
force is waiting on you.”

Moments later, Joe heard the
sucking
thwap
of gunfire.  He waited several minutes, then said, “Main
force, go!”  He lunged up and raced across the battlefield, jumping into a deep
den tunnel and opening fire on the defenders inside.  The rest of Sixth
Battalion followed, and they pushed deeper, allowing Second Battalion to close
them in from behind.

“They’ve got us surrounded,” Joe
said.  “Everyone dig in.  Main force has still got a chance.”

“Affirmative,”
Libby said. 
“They haven’t seen me yet.”

Joe had the rest of Sixth
Battalion make a wall of bodies blocking either end of the tunnel and they
hunkered down inside.  There they sat.  For hours.

“Real brilliant plan, Zero,” Rat
called from somewhere deeper in the tunnel.  “A burning frontal assault.  How
stupid can you get?  Your decoy’s all dead and your main force is pinned.  You
might as well give up now.”

“Main force needs a
distraction,”
Libby said. 
“Looking at the flag
and two defenders right now.  Rest of groundteam got called back.  Rat’s going
to blitz you.”

Hunkered against the wall of
bodies, Joe nodded at the remnants of Sixth Battalion.  “All right, main force,
here we go.”  He leapt up and led Sixth Battalion in an all-out charge toward
the deep den, screaming every command he knew.

Despite the confusion Joe
broadcasted over the headcom, the fighting was intense.  His comrades began
dropping all around him, and Joe began to worry that he’d been premature in
making his charge.  The attackers kept dwindling, with white hitting them from
both directions.

Then Joe and Rat were face to
face.  Rat was grinning.  She raised her rifle.  Joe was grappling with another
defender, unable to lift his weapon.  “You’re such a furg, Zero,” Rat laughed. 
“Next time bring your diapers.”

Then Libby said,
“Main force is
on the surface.  Got the flag in my hand.”

Joe grinned as Rat shot him in the
face.

#

When
the medics revived them, Nebil immediately gave the entire battalion two whole
days off.  Halfway through the second day, when they entered the chow hall,
their tables were laid out with hot platters of roast beef and turkey, still
steaming from the oven.  Buckets sat beside the trays, filled to the brim with
mashed potatoes and gravy.  Macaroni and cheese lay piled behind those, and
milk and apple juice shared table space with more alcohol and candy than Joe
had ever seen in his life.

Before
he allowed them to sit down, Battlemaster Nebil made them recite the Groundteam
Prayer.  Joe held hands with the others and recited it with the others, his
eyes as wide as theirs as he stared at the feast before them. 

“I
am a grounder.  This is my groundmate.  Apart, we are nothing.  Together, we
are a groundteam.  I will never abandon my groundteam and my groundteam will
never abandon me.  I will live with my groundmates, fight with my groundmates,
and when I die, my essence will be carried on by my surviving groundmates.  I
will obey the commands of my ground leader without question.   I am a
grounder.”

“Enjoy,
you Takki bastards,” Nebil said.  “Prince Bagkhal thought you should have a
reward for whipping Second.  It was a real pain in the ass to get it, too.  The
Training Committee wouldn’t pay for it, so your overseer provided it out of his
own pocket.  I’m not going to even try to explain to you how much that costs.”

Battlemaster
Nebil started to leave, then turned back with a dubious look at the vodka and
whiskey.  “Oh, and watch how much of that stuff you drink.  It is
said
that
this is what Humans use to celebrate, but from everything I’ve read, it has
some extremely undesirable aftereffects.  So imbibe your spoils in moderation. 
I’m putting you back to work tomorrow whether your head hurts or not.  Got it?!”

Nine
hundred kids shouted, “Kkee, Battlemaster!”

“Keep
them in line, Zero,” Nebil snapped.

“Kkee,
Battlemaster,” Joe replied.

Grunting,
Nebil gave them all one last, long look, then left.

The
next morning, Joe could barely move without vomiting.  It had been his first
taste of alcohol and Joe, like every other kid there, drank himself stupid
before he’d realized what he’d done.  He had taken a brief detour on his way to
the chow hall to puke in privacy when a shadow made him glance up from the
diamond gravel.  Joe swallowed down bile, hoping it wasn’t a battlemaster. 

It
wasn’t.  The creature had tiny limbs, its spindly legs looking utterly
incapable of holding up the rest of its mass.  Its skin was pale and gray, its
head impossibly huge and egg-shaped, its mouth a tiny button in an invisible
chin.  It was the eyes, though, that made Joe stop breathing.  They were
utterly black, showing not a gleam of wetness.  Peering into them was like
peering into the night sky, one swept clean of stars, leaving just the void.

It’s
a Trith. 
His skin became awash in hard, painful
goosebumps.  Joe scuttled backwards on his hands, staring up at the thing in
horror.

The
Trith took a step towards him, focused on his face. 
Joe Dobbs.  Son of
Harold, brother of Sam.  As all creatures dance on the strings of Fate, so
shall you.

Joe’s
mouth fell open.  The thought had not been his own.

Your
future has been written. 
The Trith’s midnight
eyes continued to hold his, drawing him in like black wells of gravity. 
Your
life will follow the path it was given.
  Joe felt himself losing his sense
of self, becoming a part of the creature in front of him, completely helpless
to stop it. 
Eventually, you must face your destiny. 
The gravity wells
of the Trith’s eyes tugged him deeper, surrounding and crushing him on all
sides, reducing him to a pinprick of light in a mass of inky blackness. 
For
Fate decided you will shatter Congress, Joe. 

As the
endless black pits of the Trith’s eyes became Joe’s whole world, he had the
utterly humbling knowledge that he was just a tiny speck in a universe, his
existence insignificant in the face of the bigger picture.  
Fate decided you
will shatter Congress, Joe,
the Trith repeated, like a gong going off
inside eternity.  Joe felt the Void closing in on him, assailing him from all
sides, its sheer vastness threatening to stamp out the tiny speck that was
himself.

Heavy
silence reigned absolute after the Trith’s final words, and Joe panicked, lost
in the unyielding, inky depths that surrounded him.  For long moments, Joe felt
nothing, saw nothing, experienced nothing but his own terror.  Then, into the
darkness, the Trith spoke again.

You
will try to fight it, but invariably, your path will lead to the same end.   

Then Joe’s
paralysis broke and the Trith was gone. 

CHAPTER
34: 
Visions of Trith

Weeks
later, on his way to Prince Bagkhal’s chambers, Joe glared up at the
brightly-clothed Ooreiki going about their business in the
ferlii
towers.  Not a single one wore black.  Instead, they wore Dhasha scales, long
strings of glittering beads, flowing red and yellow and pink cloth, elegant
fringed scarves and sashes, ornamental headdresses, spined blue plumes, runed
bones, vibrant silken gauzes, crystals, precious metals, and even peacock
feathers.

I’ll
bet they have flushing toilets,
Joe thought
disgustedly as he walked. 
The pampered bastards.

Staring
up at them, Joe realized Yuil wasn’t any different. 
She doesn’t know what
we have to go through.  She’s got her plush room, her fancy equipment and her
soft clothes…  She doesn’t know what it’s like to breathe diamond dirt while
trying not to get shot, or what it’s like to die every other day, just to be
brought back to life so we can do it again the next time.  She’s like all the
rest—she’s soft.

Then a
small, logical voice reminded him,
Yes, but she’s the only one who wants to
help you get out of here.
 

Just
that afternoon, Yuil had laid out her plan to get Joe off of Kophat.  Three rotations
from now, he had to rendezvous with Yuil’s companions in the abandoned
ferlii.
 
Yuil had said Joe could bring his groundteam, but Joe was still debating that. 
Maggie seemed to be enjoying her new life, especially now that Nebil was in
charge.  Scott was the type of person who could be happy whether he was living
the high life in a fancy hotel ballroom or digging dirt out from under his
thumbnails after a hunt.

Libby
was the real problem.  He knew nothing in the world would get her to go with
him, and he suspected that, despite their budding relationship, she would turn
him over to Nebil the instant she caught a whiff of what he was really doing
with Yuil.

Prince
Bagkhal was in a foul mood when Joe entered his den.  Joe recognized the
Dhasha’s body language and immediately felt a spasm of fear.  This was what
Knaaren had looked like right before he began eating slaves. 

“Come
in,” Bagkhal barked.  “Sit down.”

Joe
swallowed hard and obeyed.  Then he stiffened, remembering.  The prince had met
with Representative Na’leen that morning.  What had Na’leen told him about
Kihgl?  Did Bagkhal know about Joe’s relationship with Yuil?  Bagkhal said
nothing about it, and instead frothed and panted as he dictated his notes,
digging his talons into the stone floor like it was made of wet clay.  His fury
was a palpable thickness in the air, one left Joe sick with terror as he sat
there, trapped.  Even in the biosuit, his hands were shaking.

Prince
Bagkhal stopped suddenly, leveling his cold emerald gaze on Joe.  For the first
time since meeting the Dhasha, Joe lowered his eyes.

Bagkhal
deflated suddenly.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t realize I was frightening you.”

Joe
said nothing, wondering if it was a trick.  The Dhasha’s anger still permeated
the room and he didn’t dare glance up.

Bagkhal
gave him a long look, then let out an explosive sigh.  His breath, unlike
Knaaren’s, did not stink of rotting meat.  When Joe had asked, beating around
the bush for a full hour before he was able to delicately make his question
clear, Bagkhal had simply laughed.  “I eat nutrient cakes.  Much less messy.” 
At the time, Joe had found himself unable to believe it.  He could not conceive
of a Dhasha eating anything other than living, breathing beings that could at
least scream before they were bitten in half.  Now, though…

“The
Training Committee put our regiment under observation despite our recent
successes,” Bagkhal said, with a rumble of frustration.  “Any more screw-ups
and they’re commissioning a Jahul auction-house to sell the entire regiment.”

As Joe
stared, the Dhasha began to pace again.

“Further,
it seems that Ooreiki ashsoul I had deported somehow knew a Corps Director. 
He’s been installed as Prince Rethavn’s replacement.”

“Prince
Rethavn?” Joe asked.  “Knaaren’s father?”

Bagkhal
grunted.  “Kophati Peacemakers finally found their teeth and raided Rethavn’s
den.  They’re shipping him to Levren for questioning—they believe the furg was
involved in an insurgent movement here on Kophat, and that the rebels are
actively recruiting amongst our ranks.”

Joe
felt his face flush with guilt under his biosuit.

Prince
Bagkhal let out another massive sigh.  “If I’d known Knaaren was the son of
that slime, I would’ve killed him instead of wasting the time dragging him out
of here for detainment.  Traitors breed traitors.  It’s in the blood.”

Traitors
breed traitors.
  Joe glanced down at his hands,
remembering a swirl of smoke and darkness, the sound of rifle fire. 
Dad
wasn’t a traitor.

Once
he’d calmed himself, Bagkhal resumed dictating progress reports to the Training
Committee and the Human Overseer of Kophat, now the same Commander Tril that
had once run Sixth Battalion.  Bagkhal said nothing about his meeting with
Na’leen and Joe began to suspect that the Representative had indeed told him
something damning.  It was a gnawing fear that ate at him until he finally had
to ask how the meeting had gone.

“Representative
Na’leen?” Bagkhal asked, giving Joe an odd look.  “Why would you care?”

“Just
curious,” Joe said quickly.  “He seems like an asher.”

Prince
Bagkhal clicked his teeth in amusement.  “He is.  It went poorly.”  The Dhasha
made a grunting noise.  “The furg tried to impress me with his pet Jreet and I
had to show him I’m not Knaaren.”  Bagkhal snorted.  “He’s convinced the
Training Committee to order a mandatory gathering of all Congressional
personnel working with Humans so we can share our experiences and offer
advice.”